


another life

by younglemonade



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Soulmates AU, angst ask, but more a soft sort of melancholy where ppl learn to be okay again etc., it will clarify the nature of the ships, please read the note, to be clear: this is angst, to reiterate: sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 16:09:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12774630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/younglemonade/pseuds/younglemonade
Summary: "You make up weak excuses to see Lena, but it’s okay, because you’re sure half the reasons she comes to visit you only really needed a phone call.Being with her is like flying. It fills you up and runs through you like a shiver, if the shiver was light.You want to go back in time to Jeremiah and tell him you really do understand now."The gradual evolution and dissolution of Kara and Lena's relationship./ / /prompt: supercorp + soulmates au + angst





	another life

**Author's Note:**

> i was asked: "hey babe pls hit me with some of that super angsty shit. im talking bitter-sweet endings, pining, sadness. also i dug your skimmons soulmate au so maybe something with soulmates idk go your hardest <3 luv u" and thus have produced this 5.7k fic accordingly RIP
> 
> TO BE CLEAR: this does NOT end with supercorp romantically canon. i don't ship reigncorp, and this story is about kara and lena, but that is the ship that is ultimately canon. it's an up and then down, so it's supercorp for a while and then it ends. it's angst.  
> however, out of deference for the people on the other end of the spectrum (who want to read Lena/Sam fics), i have not tagged them as the main pairing, even though they end up canon. this is because the whole story is from kara's perspective about her relationship with lena, and reigncorp is addressed as a function of that - they don't get main scenes together or anything, but are the result of a new beginning that is foreshadowed from the start. make sure you're ready to get your melancholy on before proceeding beyond this point.
> 
> also i dont watch anymore so ive only seen a few scenes with sam. im mostly just guessing with her character. sorry.
> 
> i kind of stole/adapted this from a skimmons au i was working on so they got a special brief cameo

When you land on Earth, the first thing you are conscious of is pain. The pain of the sun in your eyes, the pain of a culture preserved in the amber of your heart, and the pain of a word burning its way onto the inside of your wrist.

Kal – Kal, who is all grown up, who doesn’t need you anymore – says it is how Earth pairs people without Krypton’s matrix and matching algorithm. He tells you it’s more organic, that it’s about love and not pragmatism, and it aches to see him waxing over the customs of an alien planet and disregarding your own. He says it’s wonderful, you say it’s stupid, and the name on your wrist says _Lena._

He rubs his thumb over the strange word, and frowns for a moment, before shaking his head and shrugging it off. Then he shows you where _Lois_ is inked on his own skin. You stare at the mark, the one he says he’s had his whole life but you know he was born without. You want to cry or be sick or get back in your pod and run away – this world is not for you, and neither is this Kal, this _Clark._

He takes you to stay with a family called the Danvers, two scientists who are nothing like the academics on your own planet. They have a daughter, Alex, who covers the name on her wrist with a band, and hisses at you not to ask about it. You don’t know to tell her that you couldn’t care less who this stupid planet thinks she’s meant for. You’re caught up in being too strong and too fast and how you were prepared to look after your baby cousin on an alien world, and now he is grown he will not stay for you.

/ / /

Alex tells you that _Lena_ is a girls’ name. Then she shows you her own tattoo, and explains it is also a girls’ name. To you, it just looks like a bunch of black squiggles, so you nod and smile and have no idea why this is some secret for her. But she seems to dislike you less after that, so you guess it’s a win.

A week later, just before the Danvers say you’re going to start school, Alex gives you a band like hers to cover the name.

“It’ll be easier,” she tells you.

“Your people are ashamed of your fates?” you ask her, tilting your head. Kal did not mention this about humans. He seemed perfectly happy to blabber on and on about this Lois person.

Alex grinds her teeth. “Kara, just – it’ll be easier, okay? Just trust me.”

And you kind of don’t but you mostly do, because Alex isn’t really your family but it doesn’t feel like Kal is either anymore, and you don’t want to be alone on Earth.

“Alright,” you say, and she relaxes. You wonder if she was worried for you.

/ / /

One night, the two of you are lying on the roof, looking up at the strange stars.

“I do not think Clark is my blood,” you say, resolutely not looking at Alex. “Kal was. But Clark is one of yours.”

“He’s Superman,” she tells you, and even though she’s neither of your biggest fans, her voice is coloured with awe and admiration. “He protects the world.”

You close your eyes and block out the foreign constellations. “If he can protect the world he could’ve protected me.”

Alex reaches out and takes your hand.

/ / /

“Usually it’s romantic,” Jeremiah explains, when the two of you are gluing back together a lamp you accidentally broke. “It is for Eliza and me. Sometimes people even have two names, and that can mean they have two matches, or are meant it be with two people at once. There are also platonic soulmates – an absolute best friend. And, of course, there are unrequited matches, true love that only goes in one direction.”

“Okay,” you say, because you still don’t understand romantic love, even with all the movies you’ve seen, and you don’t see why you would ever care to.

/ / /

Sometimes, you see Jeremiah and Eliza together, and wonder if maybe Earth has the right idea after all.

Then Jeremiah vanishes and you’re not sure you want to love that deeply if it means aching so widely.

/ / /

“People can’t be _meant_ for each other, Alex.”

Alex shrugs. “I’m not sure if the marks are the universe pointing the way or just observing what will happen. Time’s just a construct, it’s all happening at once. Maybe it’s just telling you, _this is how it will be one day._ ”

“No one is perfect for anyone. You can’t be both a person, and perfect.”

“It’s not about being perfect, it’s about being _right_.”

/ / /

By the time you make it to college, you’ve become accustomed to the idea of soulmates, and everyone’s obsession with them that set in during high school.

In your sophomore communications class, you meet a girl called Lena. She is nice enough, you suppose, but if it weren’t for her name, you probably would’ve just passed her by. But you have allowed yourself to put down roots on this Earth, to accept it and love it and become an ex-patriate. On good days, you can even pretend you chose to live here. So you indulge in the notion of soulmates, from time to time.

This Lena is not _the_ Lena, though. You are sure.

/ / /

On your first day at CatCo, Cat sees the watch you use to cover Lena’s name, and nods approvingly.

“Good,” she says. “This is a work place, not a dating service. I simply can’t stand people who run around looking for _the one_. Be enough on your own.”

You nod. “Yes, Ms Grant.”

“Maybe you’ll last longer than I thought, Kiera,” she offers you a crooked grin that should definitely not be mistaken for a friendly smile, and waves you on your way.

/ / /

“Plenty of people are happy with people who aren’t their soulmates,” Winn tells you one afternoon when the two of you are both stuck working late.

“Sure,” you agree. “Good for them. I think your whole custom is a little over-rated anyway.”

“ _Your_?”

You cough. “I mean, our. Our custom. You know, people of Earth and all that.”

Winn shrugs. “I reckon soulmates exist everywhere in the universe,” he says, and you can’t tell him he’s wrong.

It’s not until months later that you realise he was maybe trying to start something with that conversation, but luckily, by the time you figure it out, the ship has sailed and he is content to be friends and nothing more.

/ / /

You save Alex, and by coincidence, a plane. It rushes through you in a way you are sure no person ever will, and you let it consume you. You and Winn make a suit, and then you head out into the world.

Alex tries her best to control your fall. You are a loose cannon she cannot stop from firing, and so she aims you.

You wish sometimes she was your soulmate, best friends until the end. You will never love anyone more than you love her. She is your sister and your accomplice and sometimes also your mom. It would be easier, like she said, all those years ago. To not love romantically, to not love the wrong person.

/ / /

James shows you where _Lucy_ is written.

“Unrequited?” you ask. Lucy is back in Metropolis, and James is here, spending at least part of his time staring sadly out of windows.

He shakes his head. “I’m hers, too. We were meant to be together. I’m just not sure we were meant to be together _forever_ , you know?”

You consider being a stop-gap for James, and letting him be one for you. But this, too, you let pass.

Then Lucy comes back and you see how happy he is, and you think again that maybe soulmates aren’t overrated after all. Maybe there’s something to it after all.

/ / /

Clark just calls her “a Luthor” so much you pretty much forget she has a first name. It’s not until you see the name on her door that the anxiety crashes over you.

You take a breath and remind yourself that you’ve met more than one Lena, and this one probably won’t be your soulmate, either.

But then Clark opens the door and you know you are wrong. You see her and your brain goes, _oh, yes. Her._ Like the universe is reaching down to stroke your spine.

You stutter and stammer your way through the interview, cheeks pink, and Clark watches you curiously.

After you leave, glancing over your shoulder at least three times, long after Lena is out of sight, he sighs.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t be her,” he mutters, and you glare at him fiercely.

“It’s your stupid planet, _Clark,_ ” you hiss. “And maybe it’s got the right idea.”

/ / /

You make up weak excuses to see Lena, but it’s okay, because you’re sure half the reasons she comes to visit you only really needed a phone call.

Being with her is like flying. It fills you up and runs through you like a shiver, if the shiver was light.

You want to go back in time to Jeremiah and tell him you really do understand now.

/ / /

You’re so caught up in it, you don’t think to ask about the name on her wrist. You like her and she likes you and you think that for once, something has worked out exactly as it was supposed to.

And then one day she isn’t wearing that new L-Corp technology, the watch that connects to your phone, and you see _Sam_ inked on her skin.

You swallow, but it’s not enough to clear your throat. You pretend there’s an emergency at work and duck out, blinking rapidly.

That night, you lie on your couch and stare up at the ceiling, watching the blades of the fan slice through the air.

Alex comes over and sits down on the floor beside you. She doesn’t ask, and you love her for that.

/ / /

“Maybe she isn’t _the_ Lena,” James says.

“She’s the Lena,” you tell him.

He smiles weakly, like the moon in the daytime. “Yeah. I thought so.”

/ / /

You don’t mean to, but you fall together anyway. You orbit each other at galas and conferences and eventually even outside of work, when you run out of reasons that aren’t really the reason.

The first time you kiss her, an entire religion settles in your veins like silt, stopping the blood until your head gets almost unbearably dizzy. You just lean in further.

/ / /

You’ve been hurt enough that you’re pretty good at spotting it in the distance, now.

This whole thing comes with neon warning lights and you ignore them anyway. You tell yourself it doesn’t matter and that you’ll figure it out and most days that’s enough.

/ / /

You build a blanket fort with Lena because she’s never made one before. She takes you to the beach and to the planetarium and to the first lab she ever worked in.

You tell her about the home you lost in a vague enough way that she might mistake it for somewhere foreign on Earth, because she’s your soulmate but you don’t want her to carry the weight of Krypton, too. She tells you about Lex and Lillian and Lionel. You have the pain of fitting somewhere and losing it, and she has the pain of never fitting at all.

/ / /

You get lost in the softness of her lips and the brightness of her eyes and the warmth of her skin.

Well, it’s not really lost. You know exactly where you are. It just doesn’t seem to matter if you’re actually there anymore.

/ / /

“My mother didn’t believe me for years when I told her I was gay,” Lena tells you, voice soft as she releases the secret from captivity and into the air. “She said that Sam was a boys’ name. I tried to believe her for a long time.” She sighs. “But I’d lie on my bed at night when I was small and trace the letters and wonder why whenever I tried to imagine a boy to match it he was always faceless and strange.”

“And now?”

Lena smiles, leans across, kisses you softly. “And now I don’t think about Sam at all.”

/ / /

Supergirl befriends Lena, too. She saves her and watches over her like a haunted angel, and it seems unbalanced that Lena is meant for you in two ways but you are meant for her in none.

You get used to swooping in and rescuing her from whatever trouble she’s managed to talk her way into. Of course Earth would allot you a beautiful girl who is a disaster in a straight line.

/ / /

Most days, it is easy to forget Lena’s wrist does not say _Kara._ When she looks at you like that, when she smiles at you, it all fades away, and the months rush over themselves to exist around you, and you are very happy for a very long time.

/ / /

“Lena?”

“Mm?” She doesn’t look up from the stack of paperwork. It looks like she’s reading a whole novel, except the novel is really terribly boring financial spreadsheets.

“Lena. Babe. It’s three am.”

She spares you a quick glance. “Right.”

You forcibly wheel her chair away from her desk. The exhaustion is wrought across her face, but still, her gaze follows the pages as she is torn from them.

“Remember. If it’s not an emergency, you gotta stop and sleep.”

She huffs. “Fine.”

But when she stands up she leans on you tiredly, and that takes all the grumpiness out of her. Thankfully, she’s spaced out enough to not ask how you got here. You’re terrible at lying to her, even though you’ve had a lot of practice.

/ / /

You know you should tell Lena you’re Supergirl. You want to. But you’re terrified that it’s the deal breaker, the reason _Sam_ exists for her. You know she won’t reject you for your alien heritage, but you’re worried the knowledge of how much danger you’re constantly in will wear at her until she cannot bear it any longer. Or that it will put her in harm’s way. Or any number of other things will go wrong.

So you selfishly try to hold on to what is between the two of you, and you don’t say anything.

/ / /

Sometimes, you catch her staring at the ink.

“Are you thinking about her?” you ask, pretending you’re not jealous of someone neither of you know, of a future memory.

Lena shakes her head. “Every day, I think it’s going to change. That the universe is going to realise it made a mistake.”

“It doesn’t make mistakes,” you tell her. “It brought me to you.”

/ / /

Lena is attacked by a hoard of restless alien refugees trying to make her pay for her brother’s crimes.

You sit beside her hospital bed, only leaving for a few brief moments when Alex makes you, using your super speed to shower and change and eat in a few minutes and fly back in a heartbeat.

Most of the time, one of your friends will stay with you.

On Winn’s night, he brings pizza, and techno-babbles at Lena as if she can hear him. “She’ll be alright,” he tells you. “What would be the point of the universe saying Sam is for her, and not you, if she never met Sam?”

And suddenly this girl you almost hate is the only thing assuring you that Lena will be fine.

/ / /

Lena gets better.

The thought stays with you.

/ / /

“I don’t care about Sam, Kara,” she tells you. “I love you. No matter who she is – I’ll never be able to love her like I love you.”

“How can you _know_ that if you’ve never met her?” you almost yell, and this has been bubbling under your skin so long you can’t help but unleash it like fire, like rain.

Lena stares at you hard. “Because the universe doesn’t choose, I choose. And I choose you.”

“That’s it?”

“It’s easy, Kara, okay? In your head is this fictional person who’s perfect for me, but all that’s in my head is you.”

/ / /

You leave it alone but it never really leaves you alone.

Winn offers to use the DEO resources to track down Sam, and you almost agree to it. Not to bite the bullet and bring her to Lena, because you’re too weak and too in love for that. But just to… not quite know thy enemy, but maybe know thy successor. To make sure she’s good enough to fill the spaces you will have to leave behind.

“Do you think it’s unfair to Sam, for Lena and me to be together?” you ask him.

He waves it off. “No more than it would be unfair to you if you weren’t,” he assures you.

/ / /

You love Lena as hard as you can. You want to leave a mark, to be a deep and scarring memory that stays with her in all the years after you’re gone. You want to be a bright happy moment she holds onto, and an echo she never erases.

Actually, you want a lot of things.

/ / /

Lena always keeps the name on her wrist covered, like she’s keeping Sam out, shutting the door, letting go of someone she doesn’t know.

/ / /

Alex meets her soulmate. A girl with _Alex_ written on her skin.

You’re envious, but softly. Of the two of you, you would’ve picked your sister to have it both ways. She deserves this, to have this peace, after so long.

Hell, maybe you deserve it, too. But you have built yourself to be invincible in a way Alex quietly isn’t, and you don’t really _need_ this the way she does. You will find other ways to be okay in the end.

/ / /

You talk the Cat about it once.

“There were at least six men who thought I was their  _Cat_ ,” she shrugs. “I never much cared for any of them. I got rid of my mark. I remember it, of course, but I’m glad it’s gone. I’m not the right kind of person to love people that way.”

“I am,” you tell her.

She nods. “I know. But that’s the way of it, I suppose.”

Cat hugs you just before you go the leave, and you cannot take it with you, but it hovers over you for a while.

/ / /

Just like you knew she would, Sam shows up. It’s almost exactly two years after you met Lena for the first time. Sometimes, you wish you got more time. Other days, you think it was better this way. Faster, cleaner. Kal got over Krypton and you never did. Tragedy is all about exposure to what you are losing.

She’s a little older than the two of you, new to National City. She has a daughter, and you’ve never really considered how Lena might be around kids, but you’re sure she’ll be amazing.

You use your x-ray vision to scan under her watch, and see where _Lena_ is written.

Sam tells you both that she doesn’t believe in soulmates – hence her attempt with Ruby’s father – but the way she is looking at Lena tells you she might change her mind, and you wouldn’t blame her.

After all, didn’t you?

/ / /

“I’m sure we’re just platonic soulmates,” Lena tells you. “Like a business team or something. Maybe she’s meant to help me turn L-Corp into a force for good.”

You let yourself agree, because ever since you were small and Alex gave you that bracelet, you have been doing what is easy.

/ / /

Sam starts working at L-Corp.

You tell yourself you aren’t jealous, and maybe you aren’t. But there’s a slight feeling of powerlessness that you aren’t accustomed to as a superhero. The feeling of trying to hold back a tide you know should make it to shore.

/ / /

You find yourself spending more time with Sam, with Sam and Lena together. She’s nice. Really nice. Always happy to help and supportive and she tries her best in a way not many people do. She’s working to build a life she’s never really been prepared for, and you can understand that.

You also like Ruby. She’s bright and childish and full of hope, and kind of reminds you of the you from Krypton, always looking forward, always expecting things.

She looks at Lena with undiluted admiration, and Lena looks back with the optimistic cautiousness of someone who wants to be something but is unsure how.

/ / /

Lena talks about Sam sometimes, and you close your eyes and listen. It sounds like the way you talk about her.

/ / /

You visit your mom, let yourself be swallowed by her home and cell and look upon a face that isn’t really hers.

“You are not a part of Earth,” Alura tells you, once you’ve explained it. “Lena had Sam’s name on her long before you landed on that planet. You came upon a completed puzzle and were made to join a corner piece, one that already had a place it fit.”

/ / /

“Don’t be a noble idiot,” Alex tells you.

“Fuck the universe,” Lucy says.

“You are not beholden to Earth customs,” John argues.

/ / /

“Please, Kara,” Lena whispers. “Please don’t do this.”

She reaches out and you let her. You sink into the touch, cling to her. “You can’t miss your chance.”

“You realise you’re just making a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? The only reason Sam is on my wrist is because you’re stepping away to let it be there,” she says, anger seeping in at the edges.

“I’m sorry, but it’s for the best -”

“You don’t get to just say what’s best, Kara. That’s not yours to claim. _I_ decide what _I_ want. I’ve chosen you. Can’t you choose me back?”

You want to. But – “I wasn’t ever meant to be here, in National City. I’m a plus one. You and Sam were always going to be.”

“Kara, just – be selfish, okay? If you want us to be together, then don’t worry about what you think is best for me. Let’s just be together until we can’t anymore,” she says.

“We can’t anymore,” you answer, and you can’t resist inching closer and pulling her into a hug, wrapping your arms around her waist as tight as you can without hurting her.

She buries her face in your neck, and you feel the wetness of her tears. “I want you to remember that it wasn’t me who did this,” she says. “I want you to remember this was all you. Because I would’ve stuck it out with you, Kara. No matter what. No matter who had whose name. I would’ve stayed, and I would’ve loved you, and I would’ve been happy.”

“Maybe,” you say. But maybe not. Flowers are beautiful in small pots but if you leave them there they never grow. Perhaps you could’ve been happy together for the rest of your lives, but perhaps also Lena would never have been as happy as she could’ve been with Sam.

You think about saying, _I don’t think you’re my Lena_ , but you think this hurts enough without any more lies, even if it might be simpler if she hated you.

/ / /

You spend a week staring at the ceiling blankly and cursing your stupid hero complex.

You nearly go back to her a dozen, a hundred times, and tell her you were wrong, and that you are sorry, and can we try again? But you don’t.

Your only interactions with her are when you’re wearing the suit. You check in on her, to see if she’s okay, under the guise of concerned superhero.

She isn’t okay; but Lena’s like you. She’s practiced enough at loss to weather it.

/ / /

You don’t know why but you expected it to be sudden. For a few weeks to elapse and then for Lena and Sam to announce they were engaged, or something. You knew Lena was it for you immediately, and you guess you figured they would be the same. That they would snap together like the sides of a rubber band that had been held apart only by your fingers.

But they don’t.

Sam stays working at L-Corp, and Lena throws herself into her company.

/ / /

Cat stops putting you on the L-Corp loop, and you never thank her for it because you know she wouldn’t want you to.

A few months pass. The days are somehow thicker than they used to be, like the sun itself is overcast. It gets lighter by degrees.

Alex keeps hanging out with Lena, but not with you at the same time. You know she’s pissed you just gave up, that she thought you and Lena would work despite everything, and she’s said she won’t lose her friend just because you can’t get your shit together.

Alex will come to terms with it eventually, just like you have.

Regardless, you always ask after Lena and Alex always tells you, and she always hugs you while she does.

/ / /

In April, the guy who usually covers L-Corp stuff these days bails last minute, and Cat tells you to square your shoulders and go in his place.

You take a deep breath and you do.

Lena looks good, looks much better than when you left nearly half a year ago. She smiles at you – not at the crowd, at you.

Afterwards, you go up to her, and you get to chatting, and then somehow you end up going for a drink.

You sit close but not too close, you talk deeply but not too deeply, and you feel the threads that have always connected you, but it isn’t quite the same.

The next day, she texts you, and suddenly, harshly, brightly, you are friends again.

/ / /

Lena comes back to game night, and it’s like she never left, because the others have all been seeing her in their own time anyway. It was only you who edged her out of your life.

You laugh and you mumble and you turn red, and it is like the good old days except you’re all different now. Lena is different. It’s not that you ever forgot why you loved her, but the knowledge comes back all in a rush.

Except – except there is a lightness in her touch and in her gaze. It is the same one she gives Winn or Alex or James.

You were soulmates and then ex-soulmates and now you are friends, without sharp edges of any more possibilities.

/ / /

You still love her, but you closed that door and she never opens it again.

The moment has passed.

You think that Lena was right and you were stupid and self-sacrificing and you want to go back, to go back, to go back.

/ / /

You almost call Barry and beg for that some days.

/ / /

Slowly, slowly, just like with Krypton, just like with Jeremiah, you find a way to fit the truth into your life in a way that doesn’t consume you.

Lena made her choice, and you unmade it. You are still in love but you won’t be one day.

It feels dishonest to let it lie, though. “I never got over you,” you tell her, when it is the two of you alone in your living room, making decorations for Christmas. You think of doing this with her when you were still together, and how your Christmas Past lingers but doesn’t haunt.

She reaches across the table and takes your hand. The glue on your finger holds you two together. “It took me a while to process it all, too. But you know what I figured out?”

“What?”

“That I was glad. Glad I loved someone enough to still be filled with it months later. Glad that someone loved me enough to do what they thought what was best. And I also realised that we weren’t right for each other, and not because of Sam.”

“Why, then?” you ask, because maybe it will ease your heart, too.

Lena swoops her thumb over your knuckles and your bones feel like honey under her touch. “You are so brave, Kara. Always sticking up for the little guy, and never stopping till you have the whole story. And that’s amazing and pure and good. But you loving me meant you tried to save me from everything, and I can’t just be the person that you save. Who you decide things for. You will always choose to make the sacrifice and I will always choose to fight until it’s gone. That’s what I did with Lex, and my mother, and everyone I’ve ever known. That’s who I am. I’m stubborn, you know?”

You laugh, and it’s real.

Her eyes lock with yours. “I will always, always love you. And you will stay a part of me, and a part of my life. But soulmates aren’t about being perfect, they’re about being right. And you were perfect, you were everything I ever wanted, but you weren’t right.”

“Yeah,” you say, and it’s easier to breathe after that.

/ / /

You find out from Alex that Sam and Lena are roommates, in an attempt to make sure Ruby always has someone around, and because they hang out so much anyway.

“Let’s see how long it works out as just roommates,” Lucy winks at you, and you smile back. It’s been nearly two years since you and Lena broke up, and it aches but it’s also nice to know Lucy trusts that you’re okay enough again to be a part of jokes about who Lena loves that isn’t you.

/ / /

You date around, and it’s calm, without the pressure of what isn’t meant to be hanging over you.

You find other people like you, survivors of one-way love. And others, too, who loved deep but not long, who fell together and fell apart with their soulmates like weakened magnets.

“It’s all good, you know?” a boy, Steven, tells you. “They make it seem like you’ll never be happy again, afterwards. But you are. You can be. And it’s good.”

It is.

/ / /

You’re doing an investigative piece on human-alien hybrids, and you meet a girl named Skye whose soulmate is meant for someone named Daisy. You tell her to forget everything and go for it anyway. You tell her you wish you’d listened to all the people who’d told you that, and she rushes off before she’s even finished her beer, as if terrified their chance could pass in that exact moment.

You wonder if you even would go back and change it, if you could. You don’t think so. Lena was right. You would’ve fallen apart in other ways.

/ / /

“Lena just called me. Sam kissed her. She’s freaking out,” Alex tells you, carefully, like she’s waiting to see if she needs to wrap you up and keep the world out.

“Oh,” you say. “Did you calm her down?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

You smile and it’s a bit forced, but not really. You’ve made your peace.

Alex smiles back. “In a few months, we’ll tease her about this,” she says.

In a few months, you do.

/ / /

You’re babysitting Ruby one night so Sam and Lena can go out when she brings up soulmates.

“I don’t want to be with someone named Ryan. That’s stupid. Ruby and Ryan. That’s too many Rs.”

You grin at her over the top of your smoothie. “You don’t have to be with them, if you don’t want to. But don’t knock it till you try it. Sometimes soulmates are just experiences, like high school, or going surfing.” It’s not exactly what you meant to say, but it’s what comes out of your mouth anyway. “Just love who you want, kid. Don’t let Earth boss you around.”

“I think I’ll just rob banks with Ryan,” she decides. “It’ll all be very dramatic. And then we’ll go our separate ways in extremely fast cars into different sunsets.”

There’s only ever one sunset at a time, but you understand.

/ / /

Three years after that first kiss, Sam asks Lena to marry her, and Lena says yes.

Ruby asks to be Best Everything, and Ringbearer, and it granted both these desires accordingly.

You help a bit with the planning, but you’re a good friend and not a masochist. You miss what you never had, even if you miss it quietly. It’s actually Winn who does most of the work, because it turns out he has an affinity for colour schemes and flower arrangements.

Lena asks for it to be a small affair, because Lena has long since become allergic to celebrations that are really about the public and not the people who are in them.

She invites you a little nervously, and you tell her you wouldn’t miss it for the world.

On the day, you’re feeling a bit less brave, but you swallow it down, and find the happiness for her that dwells within you. This is what you wanted for her, that afternoon when you ended what you had.

You go as her something borrowed, and bring your ghosts as something blue.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> also i know skimmons doesn't exist in the same universe as supercorp, but get rekt i do what i want, so.


End file.
